Sunday, February 27, 2005

Spicy Chocolate Gingerbread

A busy weekend of music, beginning by going to the Mahler 3 with the Melbourne Sypmony, in which a friend of ours was playing, then Arvo Part rehearsals Saturday morning, onto an outing to see A's father conduct the Symphony Under The Stars concert, then a bit of Josquin and Tallis tonight at Evensong. And this isn't even very busy yet; the 2 weeks leading up to Easter will be frantic!We're in the season of free outdoor concerts here at the moment. There's jazz-in-the-park, cinema-in-the-park, theatre-in-the-park and concerts-in-the-park (not the same park, obviously!). Last night was an orchestral concert full of big pieces good for outdoor performancesfor a huge crowd who had all appeared to bring champagne, strawberries and young children...it was very family friendly...the little kiddies had a ball listening to the orchestra and trying to climb onto the stage! Everyone was relaxed and planning to have a good time.I decided to try a cake I had seen in Nigella's book, Feast, to bring along to accompany my home-made pate(it freezes well, remember!) and crackers. Outdoor concerts are probably the one classical music venue where it doesn't matter if you crunch and chew your way through an entire piece! When first flicking through the Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame chapter in 'Feast', my eye was caught by the photo and description of the Chocolate Gingerbread; it sounded just like my type of thing; rich, dense, smoky and not too sweet. A chocolate cake for adults with more sophisticated tastes. Yum.The mixture is so easy to make; it's all done in one saucepan, but make sure you use a very large one. I didn't and got into some troubles on the way. I actually found, tasting the batter at the end, that I didn't find it spicy enough; the cocoa and chocolate chips had dominated and overshadowed the ginger and spices. I didn't want this; I didn't want a chocolate cake. I wanted a spicy, chocolate flavoured gingerbread so I increased the amount of ginger by about 4 times (!! I emptied my jar!) and added about a 1 1/2 teaspoons of chili powder - inspired by things I've heard about chocolate and chili. This is why I've called it a spicy chocolate gingerbread. I baked it up and took it out of the oven about 3 minutes before I had to leave for the concert; so it was still warm from the oven when we were eating it; gorgeous! It's the type of cake that improves after a day or so, and the piece I had today was even more spectacular. It's very rich, very moist and soft, but not too sweet; in fact it has an almost bitter edge from the treacle, and a wonderful throat warming aftertaste from the heat of the chili. Despite the huge amount of ginger, it still doesn't taste overwhelmingly like gingerbread; this is definitely a chocolate cake, but a very sophisticated one. I think it'd be excellent with some fresh ginger mixed into the batter, like in Nigella's gingerbread in Domestic Goddess; I'll try this next time. I had great intentions of making the gingerbeer icing, but just didn't have a chance to get to the shop for ginger ale, so I made a sour lemon icing. The refreshing lemon goes really well with the musky, spicy cake.This one is definitely a must try! Spicy Chocolate Gingerbread'This is very rich, very strong: not for children, but perfect for the rest of us' Nigella Lawson, 'Feast'.For the cake175g butter125g dark brown sugar200g golden syrup200g black treacle OR molasses1/4 teaspoon ground cloves1 teaspoon ground cinnamon2 teaspoons ground ginger (you may not find these quantities of spicesenough. I added quite a bit more)1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder1 1/4 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda2 tablespoons warm water2 eggs250ml milk275g plain flour40g cocoa175g chocolate chips (preferably dark)For the icing250g icing sugar30g butter1 tablespoon cocoa60ml ginger ale (ginger beer)Preheat oven to 170C and tear off a big piece of baking paper to line the bottom and sides of a roasting tin approx 30x20x5cm deep.In a large saucepan, melt the butter along with the sugars, golden syrup, treacle or molasses, cloves, cinnamon, chili and ground ginger. In a cup dissolve the bicarb of soda in the water. Take the saucepan off the heat and beat in the eggs, milk and bicarb in its water. Stir in the flour and cocoa and beat with a wooden spoon to mix. Fold in the chocolate chips, pour into the lined tin and bake for about 45 minutes-1 hour until risen and firm. It will be slightly damp underneath the set top and that's the way you want it.Remove to a wire rack and let cool in the tin. Once cool, make the icing. Sieve icing sugar. In a heavy-based saucepan heat the butter, cocoa and ginger ale. Once the butter's melted, whisk in the icing sugar. Lift the chocolate gingerbread out of the tin and unwrap the paper. Pour over the icing just to cover the top and cut into fat slabs when set. Makes about 12 slabs.

The survey found that consumer 3G wholesale china from the crowd of view, the buyer 25 to 40 years old mainly white-collar workers, accounting for about 40%, followed by consumer groups of students, accounting for about three into. According to statistics, 3G wholesale products in sales, compared with a 2G mobile phone sales are still a wide gap between, but since June has been, 3G mobile phones increase in the average monthly buy products for more than 50%, "11" period due to holiday business, the increase of more than 150%. Pk that the "11" after the peak sales of 3G handsets likely to usher in more stable growth.

From cell phones users to see the specific situation of occupational segmentation in 2009, accounting for 19.5% of students dropped 21.2 percent over last year, other types of occupations than those last year, the proportion of Internet users cheap cell phones increase. White collar crowd from last year's 29.2% increase to 38.9% this year, accounting for 9.7 percentage points up to replace the student groups cellphone users as one of the biggest occupational hierarchy; blue-collar crowd from last year's 13.9% to 18.9% this year, accounting for rose by 5.0 percentage points, showing that mobile phones users by a group of students to the occupational groups a significant trend in the development. Ereli advice that, cheap cell phones and mobile phone users Internet users monthly income distribution of age, education, occupational distribution has strong correlation with high spending capacity of white-collar workers and some students in the crowd will be a huge cell phone china online potential consumer groups.

By comparing the traditional Internet users, Internet users to iResearch found that the traditional white-collar-based, cell phones wholesale, corporate general staff accounted for 18.9%, higher than the 5.6% of the wholesale cell phones users accounting; and discount cell phones users in the years students and blue-collar workers accounted for significantly more than the traditional Internet users, respectively, accounting for 19.5% and 18.9%, higher than the traditional Internet users Students and blue-collar workers accounted for 7.8% and 5.1% respectively.

Links to this post:

About

I'm exploring the world of cooking from my home in Melbourne, Australia. I know I've become fanatical because I now keep cookbooks by my bed!
Define esurientes? The hungry!
This word pops up in my singing regularly and, for me, the term perfectly combines my passions for good food & good music.
Email: esurientes2(at)yahoo.com.au